Council Considers Bill For Tenants With Pets
by Elinor Molbegott

Dogs may be man’s best friend, but you’d never know it by looking at standard-form leases in New York City. They usually ban our non-human friends from living peaceably in most apartments.

Discrimination against pets and their human companions is rampant, despite the fact that numerous studies point to the importance of animals in the lives of many people. For example, some scientific studies have reported that pets can lower blood pressure, even in people suffering from hypertension, and that elderly people with pets had fewer doctor contacts than those without pets. Pets also improve the emotional well-being of people by providing companionship and security, thus reducing stress and loneliness.

Rather than embracing these reports and expanding the rights of tenants to keep pets, the climate for pets and their human companions in New York City has become even more hostile. It is now more difficult than it has been for 15 years to keep a pet in one’s apartment. An appeals-court decision has undermined the 1983 city law which provides some protection for tenants and pets in privately owned apartment buildings.

The 1983 law says that landlords waive their right to enforce no-pet lease clauses if a tenant openly keeps a common household pet or pets for three months or more, the landlord or landlord’s agent knows about it, and the landlord does not commence a legal proceeding to enforce the no-pet clause. (The law passed amidst charges that some landlords were enforcing no-pet clauses as a means of getting a tenant to move so that rents could be hiked.) The Appellate Term, First Department has limited the scope of this law by stating that this law only applies for the lifetime of the animal, not the duration of the tenancy. This means that tenants could be subject to eviction if they get a new pet to replace one that died, or if they get another pet to keep their dog or cat company. Prior to this decision, the courts had held that once the no-pet clause is waived by the landlord, it is waived for the tenant’s occupancy in the apartment.

Councilmember Stanley Michels, along with Councilmembers Kathryn Freed, Lloyd Henry, Helen Marshall, Lucy Cruz, Thomas Duane, Karen Koslowitz, Guillermo Linares and Madeline Provenzano, have introduced a bill to clarify existing law and to expand the right of senior citizens to keep well-behaved pets.

Intro. No. 203 (formerly 1056) provides that persons 62 years of age or older may not be denied occupancy in or subject to eviction from a multiple dwelling on the ground that they have a pet. The Humane Society of New York has reported that all too often senior citizens who want to move to an apartment to be closer to their children, or who want simply to move out of substandard housing are forced to give up their beloved pets, often their primary companion, because of no-pet lease restrictions in their new leases. The bill also clarifies existing law by providing that once a no-pet clause is waived by a landlord, the waiver lasts for the duration of the tenant’s occupancy in the apartment, not simply for the lifetime of any particular animal.

To support Intro 203, write to Councilmember Archie Spigner, Chairman of the Housing and Buildings Committee; Council Speaker Peter Vallone; and the members of the Council’s Housing and Buildings Committee at: City Hall, New York, New York 10007.

Elinor Molbegott is legal counsel to the Humane Society of New York.